System of Ethical Life

[p. 289]

|289| nature the relation of desire is perfectly objective, the one in the form of indifference, the other of being-particular; this highest organic polarity in the most perfect individuality of each pole is the highest unity which nature can bring forth; for it cannot go beyond this, that the difference is not real but absolutely ideal; the sexes are absolutely in relation, one the universal, the other the particular; not absolutely equal; hence their being-one, too, is not after the manner of the absolute concept, but, because it is perfect, the differenceless feeling. The annihilation of one’s own form is mutual, but not absolutely equal; each intuits itself in the other as at the same time something alien, and this is love; the incomprehensibility of this being-oneself in something alien therefore belongs to nature, not to ethical life, for the latter is, in relation to the different, absolute equality of both; in relation to being-one, absolute being-one through ideality; but that natural ideality remains in inequality and therefore in desire, in which the one is determined as a subjective, the other as an objective.

3. this same living relation, in such a way that in it intuition is subsumed under the concept, is ideal as determinacy of the opposed; but in such a way that, on account of the dominion of the concept, the difference remains, but without desire; or the determinacy of the opposed is a superficial one, not natural, real, and the practical does indeed go towards the sublation of this opposed determinacy, yet not in a feeling, but in such a way that it becomes intuition of itself in something alien, and thus ends with a perfect individuality standing over against it, whereby the being-one of nature is the more sublated. This is the relation of parents and children. The absolute being-one of the two separates immediately into the relation; the child is the subjective human being, but in such a way that this particularity is ideal, something external, only the form; the parents are the universal, and the labour of nature goes towards the sublation of this relation, as does that of the parents, who sublate ever more the external negativity of the child, and precisely thereby posit a greater inner negativity and thus a higher individuality.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83